It would probably be accurate to call "After London" a botanist's delight. Richard Jefferies describes in great detail a world of the far future in which the wonders of our own civilization are mostly forgotten, or seen as fables. (Until Heinrich Schliemann dug up the ruins, the city of Troy was a legend also. Can we be certain that Atlantis was a legend?)

Much of England is covered in forests, the relics of our own civilization buried under thickets and shrubbery. London, once a centre of culture and trade, is long gone. Society has become medieval once more. Skills like reading and writing have been preserved, but these are forbidden to all but the nobles. Slavery is common and wars between cities are frequent.

It is almost certain that John Christopher has read this book. If you read the "Tripods" trilogy and the "Prince in Waiting" trilogy, you will see certain similarities.

In many of the post-technological stories I've read the one invention of ours that gets mentioned the most is the railroad, possibly because it helped us conquer the tyranny of distance, and made the world more accessible. In the early pages of "After London" the railroad is mentioned, though not by name, and references are made regarding our ability to communicate over a great distance with wires.

The main character in "After London" is 25-year old Felix, a sensitive character living in a world that has no place for sensitivity. Often ridiculed for his interest in learning rather than war and hunting, Felix carries out a plan to strike out on his own by embarking on a journey of discovery. Eventually Felix does make something of himself and greatness is thrust upon him.

A barbarous future is often imagined for us after a nuclear war or some other cataclysm, but in "After London" the cause of our decline is obscure and hazy. We can't be certain that the society in "After London" will eventually reach the heights from which it had fallen. Most of our inventions, like the light bulb and penicillin, were accidents. There was an ancient civilization that could produce metal of a better quality than we can produce now, but the skill is lost.

"After London" is a very descriptive novel with minimal dialogue. It is more concerned with the world it portrays than the characters who inhabit it. This is a pivotal work in the post-holocaust genre.

This 19th-century science fiction novel by Richard Jefferies (1848-1887), an English writer and naturalist, depicts an England of the distant future in which most of the human populace has either died from some cataclysmic event or plague or they have been removed to some other place. The people still living in England have no record of what happened, the event occurring centuries earlier. Most of the central part of the British Isle is now covered by a giant lake. A poisonous swamp covers the site of old London. Much of the novel is a description of this future England. The people live in a feudal-like environment and the hero of the story, Felix, sets out on a quest in a canoe to find fame and fortune so that he may win the hand of the daughter of a neighboring baron. This is probably one of the earliest novels (if not the earliest) depicting a future Earth following some cataclysmic event. This "sub-genre" or sub-category will form a significant portion of the science fiction literature. Any serious student of science fiction literature should read it.

After London is variously a phoenix-like rebirth of civilization, a critique of Victorian mediaevalism, a paradigm of fin de siecle fears of regression and atavism, a frontier adventure story, and an exploration of the fragility of historicism. Take your pick. Or don't. But read it.

Even Fundamentalist Christians who read the Bible literally don't have trouble accepting Jesus's parables as parables‹as stories illustrating bigger ideas. That is because they are flagged as parables. The author of Let There Be Life asks readers to look at the "first seven days" of creation as a parable too. The way I see it, this book sees the Bible's creation account not as something outdated or wrong. He's looking at itthrough a different window, a modern window. It seems to make sense.

Though I'd like to have had another work of fiction, this book of various and sundry non-fiction is most interesting when Mr. Fowles writes about his own fiction and his thoughts on the process of fiction in these post-modern times.

Indispensable to any admirer of Mr. Fowles fiction.

Rereading this collection recently, it struck me that John Fowles is to novels what Ridley Scott is to films. Both craft consistently slick, well-put-together work which quite often doesn't stand up to much intellectual scrutiny. Thus, Ridley Scott made "Alien" and "Blade Runner", which looked and were great, but also "1492" and "Gladiator", which merely looked great but were quite vacant. Similarly, Fowles wrote The Collector and The Magus, but (unfortunately for his reputation) he also wrote Daniel Martin and The Aristos.

The Ebony Tower works best if you think of it as a series of commercials - movie trailers, almost - for the rest of his work. That's not what it was meant to be, but that's how it works. Some of it's good, some of it's dull, but it's always at least well-constructed and workmanlike.

So there's the usual bit of thought, the usual bit of female nudity (well, quite a lot, actually), the usual rumination on the human condition, and the usual episode featuring a bearded middle-aged writer whose alluring intellect very young women find so attractive they overlook his bandy white legs and paunch and leap enthusiastically into his bed. If you've read his Daniel Martin, you'll know exactly what I mean. If you actually *are* a bearded middle-aged writer with said bandy white legs and paunch, you won't.

You'll like this if you're the kind of person who collects both classic movies *and* their original theatre trailers. But you'd never sit down and watch just the trailers, right? And that was how I felt about this collection. If I wanted a dose of Fowles, I'd go straight for his two classics.

Four novella slices for sandwich
A French tale added to make it rich
Bodies tease and elude
Minds show up in the nude
There's one boring piece, won't tell you which

If you're looking for the easy bedtime read John Fowles short fiction collection may not be what you are searching for. If you're looking for thought provoking contemporary fiction by a master this is for you. No one ever said a Fowles book would be easy and The Ebony Tower is no exception. The premise is five interlocking short stories all in a way centered around a medieval myth (which the author provides in brillent translation). Each story attempts not only to address its immediate subject but entire concepts and reflections on life and art as well. The stories force one to look at more than the daily lives of the characters but to see deeper(a sort of removing of the various layers that make up individual events of these peoples lives). While the individual plots may seem somewhat foriegn to first time readers if you stick it out to the end you'll come away with a new outlook on the world, art, history and the conflicts between the generations.Add in Mr. Fowles lush word pictures and you can't go wrong.

John Fowles is a great writer. I consider The French Lieutenant's Woman and The Magus to be two of the best novels of the 20th Century. I've read both several times. But I just can't say the same of Daniel Martin.

It started off so well, with it's scenes from the war. But then Daniel grew up and became a painfully self-absorbed creature. Daniel may represent Fowles' picture of late 20th Century man, but it's not mine. Because his portrayal rang so false, I found the book to be merely a well written slog through the angst of the 20th century (sorry--I should be ashamed of that last phrase).

A noble effort, but false in the end. Worst of all, a lot of it is just plain boring.

I continue to hope that Fowles will write another book that will capture my heart and mind like The French Lieutenant's Woman. (Sigh!)

John Fowles is a talented writer, and I think that if you end up buying this book, you will not be disappointed. It has some interesting points in it. Many deep thoughts, some interesting chapters. But, the problem is that I don't think that the story of "Daniel Martin" is a good one. It is not fascinating, atleast it didn't raise my interest. At some point I started to dislike this Daniel Martin.. He seemed boring and dull, just like any stupid, chauvinistic, self-centered, egoistic middle-aged man you can see. Maybe there is a point in describing a person like that, but frankly: I am not very thrilled to read about a man like that, I think I've met too many "daniel martins" in real life!

Although I count The Magus as an intriguing, favorite book from the past, I considered Daniel Martin to be equally well written. Though most different in style and content from The Magus, I would rate Daniel paired with Magus, as being the best of Fowles. The plot is compelling, the descriptions of place so fine you may later think you've been there. Not as complex nor finely written as in the Robertson Davies trilogy, but a great read for any time of year! If you like Davies, John Irving, P.Reverte', Palliser, you may well enjoy this novel, though it is less complex than much of the aforementioned authors' works.

Many books have been labelled "verbal masturbation", but this is the real thing. John Fowles indulges his sexual and literary fantasies, entering them from every angle he can manage until he expends himself. What results is not "one man's interaction with his muse" as one review called it, but unreadable and pretentious and not remotely sexy subporn... that wouldn't have been publicised - or noticed - if they hadn't come from someone as well known as Fowles.

Some of the parts, such as his encounter with a black nurse, and a guitar wielding dominatrix muse read like something out of a bored private schoolboy's diary.

It's a pity, because John Fowles was once a great writer... but this book and "Daniel Martin" do him a great disservice.

Mercifully short, and that's it's one bonus.

Mantissa is a short, light romp through the writer's mind. There's no heavy subtext to mull over. There's no ponderous character development to follow. There's just Miles Green in his hospital room, which becomes other things, and Erato, the woman who is his muse. A few other characters lurk in orbit around the room, but the whole story takes place literally in the brain of Miles.

Most of the book is dialogue between Miles and Erato as he alternately romances and berates his muse, the essence of his creativity, and is repaid in kind. It's an animated metaphor for the process of writing, and many times the characters seem to know they are merely characters in a book. It begins in a hospital where Miles has just recovered, having lost his memory through some accident, but that scenario quickly ends as Erato takes on numerous personalities and attitudes in her interaction with Miles.

This is probably best for those familiar with John Fowles's other works. Mantissa is clever, it's funny, it's self-aware, and it's not going to shake the literary world. It's just a quick afternoon read that gives you a peek into the mind of a writer.

With Mantissa you will not be embarking on any high-minded journeys along difficult paths to higher truths as you would with The Magus, The Collector, and A Maggot. Keeping that in mind, there is much to enjoy in Mantissa, which sketches several dialogues between Miles Green, an author and Erato, his muse, all of which take place in Green's fertile and erotically charged imagination. As always with Fowles, and especially here, leave any puritanical notions you might have about sex and Freudian analysis at the door. That said, this short piece works on a number of levels and provides humor and insight into struggles intrinsic to the creative process, the clash of the sexes, and what Fowles seems to regard as the strong sado-masochistic tendencies inherent in all relations between men and women. The satire of modern academics and neoclassicists is very funny if you can struggle through the lingo.

I had no trouble reading Lady Chatterley's Lover, but I did indeed have trouble reading The Man Who Died. It is gross and blasphemous. D. H. Lawrence must have been mad when he wrote this. His tuberculosis was sure getting at him.

The book, which is a novella, was about Christ's resurrection. He discovers that men are put on earth to have sex with women. And He Himself takes part in this heathen notion.

I was insulted when I read this. Christians and non-Christians alike will agree that this book is not worth reading.

This is D.H. Lawrence at his hobby horse again. He gives a portrayal of the risen Jesus after the crucifixion who is tired of life . . . weary of it all, with the life force at an all-time low. What can save him? Sex, of course. What else? It's the same old song-and-dance. Lawrence seems to think that the answer to all of life's problems is sexual union, which makes about as much sense to me as regarding vegetable curry as the meaning of life. Sex has it's place, to be sure, but I don't understand the primacy that Lawrence ascribes to it in each and every one of his novels. In certain instances, sex can revive a sense of purpose or ebbing energy, but it cannot and will not aid anyone in a sense of world-weariness. If attempted it will just be like trying to give live into a dead horse. It would probably only make one feel all the more disgusted with existence rather than giving one a sense of rejuvenation, as Sartre so adequately demonstrates in his "Nausea". All, in all, i felt the whole attempt was kind of silly. The Christians will get mad, the Lawrencians will love it, but it is really just another testimony to one man's inability to make sense of live in anyway other than genital terms.

The first time that I read this story was close to 10 years ago and it was coupled with another short titled, "Bryn Mawr" (sp). Being a fan of Kazantzakis, I was immedeiatly drawn into this speculative account. I couldn't put it down even when it ended. The best of this style and subject.